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Comparing Philbrick's View Of Different Authors Contributions

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Despite Philip’s tremendous experience with selling land to the English, Philbrick unfairly portrays the “king” as as an indecisive ruler and poor decision maker. For over a decade the Wampanoag ruler had been the intermediary for native land sales to English proprietors. As Philbrick explains, any Pilgrim man wishing to obtain native land was required to make the purchase through the official Plymouth court, thereby preventing “unfair” sales (like alcohol for land) that the Indians could later dispute. One would imagine that in dealing only with the officials, as opposed to the men purchasing the land, Philip would be granted greater protection from any one of the potential abuses that he could suffer from. But instead, Philbrick recounts how, by “monopolizing the purchase of Indian lands, Plymouth officials kept the prices they paid artificially low” (171). …show more content…

Philip, who had his own animal herd, would have been aware of the uncontrollable factors that were also at play, such as the unhappiness which arose when English cows and horses grazed on Indian corn. Even as he assumed leadership thirteen years before the war, Philip would have been in tune with the inevitable and growing threat English settlements posed to his people. Yet instead of attempting to appease the Indians by granting them permission to go on wild, ineffective raids, which would have only motivated the English, Philip waited until he could gather an effective, armed, multi-tribe force before he waged war. By delaying his response and refusing to allow personal vendettas be the spark for battle, tactful Philip is inaccurately described by

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